I'm afraid to learn more about humanity. Also, I don't want to read about end of life stuff. Statistically, I want to believe there is a way to live forever.
Shark Week Candy GIF by TrolliPick a Hand
"My favorite statistic, as a left-handed person myself, is that southpaws die, on average, 13 years younger than right-handed people. I had always heard this attributed to the fact that power tools are generally designed for right-handed users, making many of them awkward and dangerous for left-handed people. But the real explanation is far more interesting."
"See, until the middle of the 20th century, being left-handed was heavily stigmatized, and often viewed as a sign of the devil. Teachers would not allow their left-handed students to actually use their dominant hand. This actually proved to be somewhat effective."
"So as left-handedness became more accepted, lefty children were no longer forced to use their right hand, but older people who were naturally left-handed but forced to use their right hand continued to identify as right-handed."
"Because of this, the average age of self-described left-handed people was significantly lower than it would be if not for the previous generation being forced into right-handedness. And when the average age of a group of people is lower, the average age of death tends to follow suit."
Woof
"One fact that I always love sharing is that ravens and wolves will work together to find food, the ravens act as scouts for the wolf pack and when they find an animal, dead or alive, they will use a special call to alert the pack of the direction of the food, really interesting stuff."
Angles...
"The bond angle between the oxygen and hydrogen atoms in a water molecule is exactly 104.5 degrees. This peculiar angle allows water to be less dense when solid than when liquid, which is why ice floats. If ice didn't float, it's unlikely that life would be possible, at least in the sense that we know it."
Give me a Calendar
Dog Gif GIFGiphy"People born in the springtime have a 15% higher chance of having anorexia, people born in October have a 10% less likely chance of any other month to have one."
As a New Yorker... who are y'all biting? And prefer my fabulous fall birthday.
Logistics
Civil War Trailer GIFGiphy"At the battle of Gettysburg, the South came in from the north and the North came in from the south."
"games played"
"If the entire world participated in a single elimination rock-paper-scissor tournament it would be over in 33 rounds."
"I think "rounds" does not imply "games played" but "people facing off and deciding on a winner based on a set of rules, which might require more than one game". The classic is "best of three; ties are repeated". That is more complex, especially as the probability of each choice is not 1/3 for each player to chose one of the possible hands (this game has been examined). but it still does not change the number of "rounds" where two players face off."
People Share The Most Selfless Thing They've Ever Secretly Done | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
A simple gesture from a good samaritan can go a long way. It could even inspire a chain of people paying it forward. But there's a certain rush in knowing yo...Meow
"Polydactyl cats, or cats with more than the typical number of toes, were once considered lucky by sailors and were highly desired to have on ships. When the sailors made port, the cats did too. Because of this the New England coastline has a higher number of polydactyl feral cats than anywhere else in the world."
- Diredoe
"Poison King"
"Mithridates VI, King of Pontus, was one of the Roman Republic's most terrifying enemies after Hannibal Barca. He performing a genocide of Roman colonists in modern-day western Turkey in an event called the Asiatic Vespers. This led to conflict with the Romans in the Mithridatic Wars (yeah, he had a series of wars named after himself), but ultimately lost to the Roman war machine after 20 years of conflict."
"Also was known as the "Poison King", due to the fact he routinely poisoned himself to build up immunity because he was so paranoid about being poisoned by any one of his numerous courtly rivals. Honestly, this whole man's life was just wild. I recommend reading the biography in my source below! Source: https://www.livius.org/articles/person/mithridates/"
Average
The One Where Estelle Dies Episode 15 GIF by FriendsGiphy"The average person believes they are smarter than the average person."
- SmackEh
MEGA/Micro
"Scientist had to come up with a unit of measure to tell people how bad Nuclear death would be. So they came up with MEGADEATH."
The inverse of a megadeath is a micromort, which is a statistical tool used to describe a person's chance of dying in a given period."
"On a more light hearted note, when they had to come up with a unit for every day radiation exposure that are actually not that bad they invented the banana equivalent."
Colors for All...
"The Olympic flag's colors are always red, black, blue, green, and yellow rings on a field of white. This is because at least one of those colors appears on the flag of every nation on the planet."
"Every time I see this I want a country to change their flag to just purple or orange."
"And Green was required only because of Libya until Ghaddafi was removed. It can technically now be removed."
- tnick771
Shut up Wayne!
hockey GIFGiphy"The highest scoring pair of brothers in NHL history are Wayne and Brent Gretzky, with 2,861 points combined. Wayne scored 2,857 of these points. Brent scored 4. Wayne brings this up every year at Christmas."
Fiction
"My friend in high school had this novel that was nothing but a bunch of interesting statistics. She read through the entire thing (had to be 100+ pages) and on one of the last pages it said "70% of the statistics in this book are made up." She was so mad."
- Alethi
Make a Wish
"In a room of 23 people there is a 50% chance two of them have the same birthday. In a room of 72 it's almost certain."
"I have first hand experience of this! I was on a bus coming back from Colonial Williamsburg to my hotel and somehow we got on the topic of birthdays and it turned out me and someone else on the bus had the same birthday!"
flash of light...
"Certain types of lighthouses are identified by the timing between each flash of light. You could have two lighthouses on the same coast, one blinks every 5s, the other every 7s. Sailors can then identify which lighthouse is which, what coast they're on, and what hazard each lighthouse is warning of. This is used in combination with a kinda lighthouse log book, which notes the timings of each lighthouse for a certain area."
"This was more commonly used before advances in location/gps technology, but it's still relevant today. I find the simple logic of this, given it's age, ingenious, and I tell as many people as I can, when I can. Along with a bunch of other useless info. Haha."
And Tea?
"When people are asked What they like in a perfect Cup of coffee, the top three words are bold dark aromatic. When people are given coffee options they pick warm creamy and sweet. People Often say one thing But actually mean another."
- Csj2454
"When I'm asked what I like in a perfect Cup of coffee, I usually say Whiskey."
A-HAAA!!!
Down With Love Omg GIFGiphy"Unlike most phobias, which cause blood pressure to spike, fear of blood makes it drop, hence the fainting."
minus the wrap...
"Saran Wrap can fix a corked bottle of wine- Ever opened a corked bottle of wine? Smells nasty, tastes nasty. If you can't return it, you can pour it into a decanter or pitcher and add a crumbled up piece of saran wrap in it. The TCA molecules that make thawing corked will bond to the saran wrap and then the wine will be drinkable (minus the wrap) after that. It will only ever get to about 80% of what it should taste like, but it's no longer gross."
Ah wisdom, what a gift. And what a burden.
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I'm a Survivor!!
GiphyI was cured of Stage 3b lung cancer.
Catzenpudl
I'm an AML Leukemia survivor! I'll be 15 years in remission just before my 17th birthday. Glad you made it out ok :)
aeduff
Bad Oranges.
I'm allergic to the chemical released when fresh oranges are peeled. That first spray when you open an orange will put me into anaphylactic shock. Super specific, super rare when the allergy is that severe. Bad oranges.
tsaboatnotaboot
Oh gosh, that sounds really scary! I'm super sensitive to oranges being peeled as well, but have never experienced anaphylaxis! I usually just have to grab my puffer and that's it.
dinsparkles
The Breath.
I'm currently breathing with someone else's lungs.
Cdf12345
So am I! When did you have your transplant? I just had my 20 year anniversary a few months ago.
piper1871
The Rarity.
Benign brain tumor that may have been sitting there my whole life.
My doctors say lots of people could be walking around and not even know it so who knows how rare it is.
intersecting_lines
Twins.
GiphyI'm chimeric, except, I have two twins. I'm walking around with my fraternal twin brothers DNA and identical twin sisters spinal tube next to my spinal tube. I was supposed to be three individuals.
hhh1978
"Surprise"
I am born on the same date as my dad and great grandpa.
D0z3rD04
You have ruined too many birthdays. Your dad was gonna celebrate it and you were just like "surprise" lol.
Jesus297628863
Romania.
I was one of the few Romanian orphans to receive a good life.
djentrify
I wasn't orphaned, but i was abused. Anyone that knows me and my family and past.. they keep wondering how i ended up so sane and functional. There are scars and trauma hidden, but I'm much better than 99% of the people who go through what i did. My brain helped, i have big gaps of memory, years of my childhood missing and most of my school life up till 10th grade... i just don't remember..
But OP, Im proud of you! We'll show them!
VforVali
1 in a Hundred.
I have epilepsy. So about 1 in 100, not that rare (at all really) But, I've had a status epilepticus which is when you have seizures that don't stop until you die, without intervention. I woke up in the ICU with my hands strapped to the bed, a feeding tube in, a catheter and an insanely sore throat from being intubated.
I also have had surgery where they drilled two holes in my skull and inserted two subdural electrodes to find out where the seizures originate from. That's under the dura matter, right on the surface of my brain. Still have two holes in my skull now. I always thought they'd grow over, but apparently just the exposed marrow? around the edges closed itself up.
So, I want to be donated to a university and turned into a skeleton when I die.
shunkamunka
Don't Make Mom Mad.
I have sickle cell anemia.
My skin is white.
Ive had doctors ask me 'are you sure you have sickle cell? Want to be retested?' This has happened 6 times that I remember. I've never seen my mom angrier lol.
KylesAGSspec
Stay Cool.
GiphyInstead of sweating I just get really really cold when working out. So far no health problems just a cool way to freak out my friends.
UnusualBloo
Leaper!
GiphyI am a leap day baby! Coming up on 6 years old. :)
kelsymew
And when you reach your eighteenth birthday, you'll no longer be an apprentice pirate! Huzzah!
ClearBrightLight
Making it Through....
Being reasonably well-adjusted despite spending years as a foster kid where some of the homes were abusive.
Tuberoinfundibular
This made me smile. I hope your life continues to get better.
Singularjoy
Three Times a Charm...
I've had chicken pox twice.
henrythethirteenth
Me too! Apparently there is a "mild" and "not mild" version of the virus. The "mild" version protects against both strains, but the "not" version only protects against "not" strains. Thus, if you get the nasty version first, you can get the more mild version and have chicken pox twice. I have no idea how this will relate to shingles later in life, but we're probably screwed.
Lucky us.
Buugybuug
I'm Beautiful.
I'm an asian and also a natural ginger
I'll send a pic to the people who've asked to see in a bit, I don't wanna blow my reddit anonymity. Just DM me if you want to see and haven't left a comment yet.
18 Months In....
I'm an 18 month survivor of Stage 3 pancreatic cancer and currently in complete remission.
Bamajoe34
Being a doctor, I know how scary the pancreatic cancer is, so this made me smile. You only find out about it late, and the remission is very rare especially at a stage 3 or 4, which makes you very lucky. However gotta be careful, do your check-ups regularly because you never know.
hornysisyphus
Unicorns.
GiphyLeft handed, dyspraxic and coeliac!
I'm like the unicorn nobody asked for.
haemwrecker
Left handed Praxies of the world unite!! Hey there buddy 😁
thepurplehedgehog
Life of the Party!
Cross-dominant, Aspie, Ulcerative Collitis, Hemipeligic Migraines, and Narcolespy.
I'm fun at parties.
McRedditerFace
I was going to call you a quitter (the joke I always use for U.C. folks, because Crohn's disease is 'gum to bum') but never mind you're way worse off. Enjoy those parties, you've earned it.
mini_garth_b
Twice Survived.
I was present the two times the US was attacked on American soil. I lived in Pearl City, Hawaii just outside of Pearl Harbor when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on 12/7//1941. I worked in the Pentagon when a missile struck it on 9/11/2001.
Edit: To all those correcting me, yes it was a plane and not a missile. In my very old age I get confused sometimes. When I evacuated the Pentagon as ordered, I could see the part of the plane that was sticking out of the side of the Pentagon. Took me a hell of a long time to get home because of the incredible traffic jam that occurred in the aftermath.
HiBrucke6
The Rarity of Women.
I'm a colorblind woman. Apparently, it's 8x rarer in women than in men.
MissAJHunter
That's because women need two X chromosomes with the colorblind gene for it to present iirc. Otherwise, a woman is simply a carrier. This also means that a woman can only be colorblind if her father is also colorblind iirc.
Since men only have the one X, they only need one parent to have the gene. So you can have two color-seeing parents and a colorblind son. The mother was a carrier.
Edit: I should specify that this is true for red-green colorblindness, which is inherited through sex chromosomes. But blue colorblindness is not, and thus the statistics are different.
SuddenTerrible_Haiku
"See the air"
GiphyI have visual snow (you see tiny flickering dots everywhere).
the_mighty-chaddicus
I didn't realize there was a name for this. I remember when I was a little kid, maybe ten, trying to explain to my parents that I could "see the air," because everything seemed to be covered in tiny dots. I notice this more often in lower light situations, kinda looks like the grain or "noise" you'd see in a photo. But it's very mild for me so I don't know if it's the same thing.
86sleepypenguins
Reddit user u/throwdowntown69 asked:
"What's a statistic that blew your mind?"
10.
GiphyMore than 50% of all of Canada lives below this little red line. Which is why our population distribution is so wonky.
9.
If you take away all of Wayne Gretzky's hockey goals, he's still the league's all-time points leader solely on assists.
8.
Seen on r/todayilearned the other day:
The USA has the 3rd highest population in the world. If it had a billion more people, it would still have the 3rd highest population in the world.
The difference between a million and a billion is roughly a billion.
5.
GiphyCats who fall from less than six stories, and are still alive, have greater injuries than cats who fall from higher than six stories.
Feline High-Rise syndrome and such. Higher up, they have enough time to reach terminal velocity and relax their bodies because they don't feel like they're falling, so they don't hit the ground fully braced. The shorter distance falling doesn't allow for this, and results in greater injuries to the cat.
4.
It costs the government less money to build and give people houses/places to live than it would be to have them be homeless. Mostly due to the increase burden homeless people have on the health care and justice systems.
God I wish more people understood this. If housing and healthcare were made more affordable by public means it would be WAY less expensive for everyone.
3.
The Beatles were only together for 7 years...all those hits and fame from only 7 years. It's bizarre.
2.
There is almost no chance that the same exact combination has been achieved twice in a completely shuffled deck of cards.
To put it in perspective, there are more combinations to shuffle 52 cards than there are atoms on this planet.
1.
Dinosaurs ruled the earth for so long that TRex was much closer to seeing Justin Bieber in concert than it was to seeing a stegosaurus.
We all get a car!!
GiphyWon a car when I was 12. Chances were 1/50000. Because I was underage I entered the competition using my mother's name and she got the car. Junonx
There is always a chance...
My family and I drove from the Midwest to Alabama. While we were on the beach, my dad stopped a guy who was taking a walk. As it turns out, that guy and my dad were friends at the same Malaysian camp for south vietnamese refugees over forty years ago, and reunited by chance. cariface
4!!!
GiphyWent into an agency to do paperwork for home medical care for my son. Lady was nice and during course of the benefits interview, she asked me my address. She says, "oh, I live there, too. We just bought #3. What number are you in?"
I blinked, then said, "4." This lady and I were going to share a common wall in our condo complex.
We became fast friends, and she was like a grandma to my kids. metamurphius
I am who I am!
I was born with a blood type (type and rh factor) completely different from my parents. They thought I was switched at birth and did a paternity/maternity test on me. Turns out I'm just a freak. ImTotallyNormalish
Is that you?!
I witnessed two women bumping into each other for the first time since their escape from Laos forty years ago. They were only just children at the time. Somehow one recognized the other, tears were shed, but it really got me when the one couldn't stop saying "I thought you were dead!" War really tore apart Southeast Asia... iusuallylurknopost
Hey Neighbor!
GiphyMy family and I were driving for 8 hours in northwestern India. We decided to stop for food at a little restaurant in some tiny village about halfway through, where we ran into our next-door neighbors (from the US) who had rented their house to travel the world. julmoteydaezehe
Was in New Zealand earlier this year, which is literally at the opposite end of the earth from where I live. We were hiking and my travel buddy meets his neighbor on a random bridge. mcaruso
How are you not immune?
Have been bitten 4 separate times by a brown recluse spider. I once read I had a greater chance of getting struck by lightning than being bit my a brown recluse... so now I'm afraid of thunderstorms. minusthelela
Sing out Louise!!
i was taking emergency roadside assistance calls but my shift was pretty dead so i was browsing twitter and saw that a band i liked had tweeted they broke down. For a split sec i thought it would be cool if they called our company and i got the call and went back to scrolling. the next call i got was the the singer of the band!!! palspalspals
I hate the dentist!
GiphyI have a fused tooth.
I move around a lot and have had a lot of dentists.
Dentists all lose their mind when they see it for the first time.
I have to tell them how to log it into their system because most don't know what to do (consider one of the teeth missing for consistent records across dentist offices). YonderIPonder
The Boys have it!
My sister got married and got pregnant. She was hoping that it would be a girl. Ended up being a boy. So she tried a second time. Out came another boy. So she decided to give up at two children and her husband got a vasectomy. Well, she ended up getting pregnant again. With twins. Both boys. After they were born she planned on getting her tubes tied, but wanted to put if off a little bit since she was busy taking care of four boys and couldn't afford to be put out of commission for any period of time. So she went on birth control and her husband started wearing condoms. Well, she got pregnant again. With a boy.
Between her spawn and my two sons we are 7/7 on boys. Apparently we can't make girls. hashtag_punchanazi
I know you...
My parents were both born in the same little town in Ohio. They never met though, when they were both 8 my mom moved to Connecticut and my dad moved to Florida. When they were 14 they both moved back to another town in Ohio and didn't meet for another 3 years, they've been together ever since. Turns out my moms mom and my dads dad had known each other since they were 13. Unicornhornporn554
Not my head!
GiphyI went on a run down the middle of a street and was knocked out by a traffic light that came loose and fell on my head. travcunn
God exists...
I found a better job with $10k increase in salary exactly 1 week after I was fired from my last job. Got 4 weeks of paid vacation due to my severance. pbetts46
Arby's?
My dad moved from Tennessee to Florida this past summer and he was driving a big Penske Truck. He stopped by my town because of my high school graduation. I managed to get behind his truck on the road to the school. After the graduation was over, my mom rented a place to throw me a party. He left before I did to go get something at the grocery store in his truck. I drove to the party and got stuck behind his truck again on the road. Then I left the party just a bit earlier than everyone so I could go say hi to a friend that was working at Arby's at the time. I ordered some food, his mom took pictures of us and we had a pretty good time at the restaurant and then it was finally time for me to go home. I got stuck behind my dads truck, again the entire trip home. None of this was planned. ButteredBrotata
WOW!
GiphyI have two uterus'. Something like 1/2,000,000 women have it. The tech who first saw/found out was not supposed to tell me but freaked out, showed me(on the screen lol), explained how rare it was and then asked permission to show her students. Every time I go to a new doctor "DID YOU KNOW.." WakeNBreak
The Spirits are amongst us...
I dropped a spoon in such a way I'm convinced caused it to clip through the floor. I didn't hear anything like it hitting the ground and I haven't found it since. LordSaltious
KISMET!!
Went on a ski trip and ended up sitting beside a Swedish girl on the bus. Went to Sweden the following year and my room mate was her brother. wildcard987
Learn and Grow....
GiphyAs a gay man of sixty, although I'm no longer sexually active, I used to have absolutely masses of completely unprotected sex. I think it was some sort of death-wish after my partner died of HIV, but despite everything I never caught it myself. THAT is incredibly unlikely, yet true. EddiesOpinion